


so why didn't you just say so

by sentichefuoripiove



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, my very specific brand of canon divergence, spanning from amen to the s2 finale, where everything is exactly exactly the same but the implications are Wildly Different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentichefuoripiove/pseuds/sentichefuoripiove
Summary: He whispersthank youin her ear, and somehow they both know he really meansI may be starting to forgive you, and that’s enough for now, and it’s all it takes for them to becomethemagain.They even don’t notice, no one really does.(Except for Charlie, but that’s because Charlie always knows).or: how it took Will and Mac two full years to realise they were back in a relationship
Relationships: Will McAvoy/MacKenzie McHale
Comments: 13
Kudos: 30





	so why didn't you just say so

Neither of them realizes it right away, but they actually get back together on Valentine’s Day, the first year Mackenzie comes back.

She plots the entire Rudy thing, the last in an endless series of sweet, grand gestures that make his blood boil with how much he wants to yell at her to _stop being cute, it’s not going to work_. Because it hasn’t, worked that is, or at least it hasn’t until now. 

Will isn’t sure what’s different about today, and maybe it’s the fact that the rest of the staff looks so sincerely committed to it, or the fact that he works in a place where people care enough that there’s not one, or two, but _three_ men sporting a sling around their neck because they feel so passionately about the news and about other people that they all broke their arm; and none of that used to happen when Mackenzie wasn’t here. Or maybe he’s just tired and she caught him off guard.

She’s standing in the middle of the newsroom, surrounded by these people, and suddenly things start to click different in his head. This is Mackenzie, and she’s back, and clearly the world hasn’t imploded from them being in the same room again, like he always thought it would happen. Her eyes find his, and Will feels his heart beat for the first time in what feels like centuries (he’ll make the connection later, but it’s been almost exactly twenty eight months to the day from when he kicked her out of his house, the day she confessed). 

He doesn’t really registers it right away, but that’s when things start to change.

She everything but runs into his arms and he pulls her in easily, resting his chin on top of her head, arms over shoulders and around her neck. She can’t slip away this time. 

He whispers _thank you_ in her ear, and somehow they both know he really means _I may be starting to forgive you, and that’s enough for now_ , and it’s all it takes for them to become _them_ again.

They even don’t notice, no one really does.

(Except for Charlie, but that’s because Charlie always knows).

*

It’s not like they’re having sex again, they’re not even kissing (after all, they haven’t realized that they’re back together, and that they could if they wanted to), and that’s why on the surface nothing really changes. In his or her office, arguments about the rundown inevitably turn into screaming matches, about Brian and her faults, her guilt, his rage (and possibly _his_ guilt too, for not being enough for her). In the bullpen and the conference room they bicker about the news, more careful about not letting their private issues bleed through in front of the staff.

Not that that has ever worked.

It’s almost like they turned back time, rewinding their breakup to the day it happened, and started from there. This time, they don’t leave and pretend nothing ever happened. The fight, the hurt, the betrayal, are right there between them, and if they want to find their way back to one another they’re going to have to stay and dig through it, together.

That’s what they do. Every fight, every argument, feel different now that they have a goal to look forward to (even if it’s just a subconscious thing, for both of them). Will doesn’t feel like he’s just aimlessly spewing venom at her every time he opens his mouth, and Mac starts to feel like maybe now he’s really listening to her when she gives him her reasons. 

In the studio and in the control room, they silently say _I love you_ to each other every night, spoken through her headset and through the looks he directs at the camera because he knows she’s on the other end of it. They say _I love you_ in silence, because they haven’t realized they could just do it out loud if they wanted to.

*

The Bin Laden broadcast comes and mercifully goes and later, when he comes home, he’s welcomed by the mess of the party they had to leave in a hurry, the party he absolutely did not want, but hosted anyway because Mac cared about it _so much_ and really, there was no way he could ever say no to her. 

He sits on the couch, in the darkness, and through the still lingering brainfog brought on by the weed, he keeps thinking that she looked _stunning_ tonight, and maybe it’s the pot talking, but now wherever he looks around in his apartment he sees her, standing behind Jim while they played guitar together, smiling at him, or besides Charlie with a concerned look on her face, noses buried in their phones.

He can’t help but wonder why she isn’t in his bed right now, can’t help but think that he wants her here, where he can touch her, and smell her skin, and bite into her shoulder just a bit, just to see if she still tastes like… he’s got the munchies now.

In the middle of his kitchen, in front of the open fridge, he leaves her a message.

(He should have just realized he could have just told her he loves her, he didn’t need to bury the words under all those excuses).

*

Mac spends the first night in the hospital with him, sleeping on a plastic chair pushed next to his bed so that she can rest her head beside his legs. She doesn’t get much sleep actually, instead she paces the room anxiously as she waits for him to get better, thinking of the last time her dad was in the hospital and she can’t believe it feels like that, the same overwhelming panic and fear of the unknown, the same spiraling dark thoughts she has to bat away like flies.

She reads Brian’s article seven times in a row that night, and each time her heart sinks deeper in the pit of her stomach and she wants to wake up Will, cry _I’m so sorry_ into his chest until he forgives her.

(She’s so wrapped up in her guilt that she can’t see that he’s stopped blaming her for a long time now, and that if he saw how completely broken that article made her, his body would probably immediately self-heal just from sheer force of will, and Brian Brenner would have to run very freaking fast to get away from his fists).

*

They get incredibly close. She goes from just being his EP, to his _trusted partner_ , to his _best friend and confidant_ , and they don’t even notice the change in the way the talk to and about each other.

(At this point, everyone else has, because they’re not idiots).

They get incredibly close because, even if they can’t see the reason why yet, they’re not so scared of forgiving each other anymore. 

He still calls her at two in the morning, and the conversations shift from work to everything else far quicker than they used to, the facade of professionalism slipping with every time he calls her _honey_ without thinking, or when she tells him _time to go to sleep, Billy_ and his lips involuntarily turn up in a smile.

She has him over for dinner on Sundays, every Sunday, papers from the office scattered on the table around glasses of wine and plates of food, Mac pacing her kitchen because she thinks better when she’s moving, and together they make a plan for the week’s broadcasts. They’re both aware of how useless the whole thing is, when inevitably Monday morning comes and all their plans immediately get thrown out the window, but neither one of them ever says a word about it.

(They don’t see they shouldn’t need an excuse to spend time together anymore).

*

“We have to retract Genoa” she says, tears in her eyes and quivering lip, and no one knows what to say. The staff quietly walks out of Will’s office until they’re left alone, the glass door rattling close behind Mac’s back.

She loses it then, bursts out crying and Will bolts, covers the distance between them and catches her before she can let herself fall to the floor. He wraps himself so tightly around her that for a second he’s worried she can’t breathe, but then she starts sobbing, and his heart breaks in so many little pieces there’s no room in it to feel anything else but her pain.

“It’s all my fault” she keeps repeating, and he’s still not sure what has actually happened but he just knows that can’t be possible, there’s no way Mackenzie is to blame for something like this. He inherently trusts her, fully, and for once he doesn’t need to know the facts to take a position, he’s just blindly sure he’s always going to be falling squarely on her side. The situation feels eerily familiar, Mackenzie saying _it’s all my fault_ and sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. The irony is, somehow, still lost on both of them.

This time, Will doesn’t push her away. 

This time, he doesn’t agree with her, doesn’t scream at her to leave and never come back, but holds her tightly and kisses every bit of her face he can reach and tells her _you did nothing wrong_ , this time he believes in her, trusts her before she does herself.

They’ve finally turned back time, all the way to the beginning.

They’ve rewound their relationship back to that terrible, terrible day, and this time he makes it right. He forgives her, finally, completely. They go back to the beginning of the end and he makes a different choice.

Time starts back up from that.

*

On Election Night, after the broadcast, after the celebratory rounds of champagne, most of the staff heads home, the people unlucky enough to pick the night shift sitting quietly around the room, some of them already dozing off, making the best of the lull in activity after the day they’ve just had and before another one inevitably starts.

Mackenzie and Will watch over them, from his chair in the darkness of the powered-down studio, Mac perched on his lap. He’s drawing lazy circles on her thigh, and she’s resting her head on his shoulder, her eyes fluttering close from the exhaustion finally getting to her. They’re going to go home in a minute, together for the first time in years, holding hands, but for now they just enjoy being in this space like this, the space they’ve made and they’re making _together_ , now in more ways than one.

“You said _took you long enough_ ” Will muses, words whispered against her hair. He feels her shake quietly with laughter.

“Was I wrong?”

“It’s funny” he considers for a second, “but now that we’re on this side of it, this breakup feels a lot shorter than what I used to think.”

“I think you’re right” she says, her voice trailing, and the way she feels suddenly heavier against him tells Will she’s fallen asleep.

He’s gonna have to carry her back to her office, and to hell with his busted knee.

(Charlie will tell them, one day, how they’d already been together for two entire years before they got back together. Mac doesn’t believe him, but Will smiles and says nothing).

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this idea floating around in my head (and several versions of it floating around in my laptop) for almost two years now... i'm happy it finally gets to see the light of day!
> 
> a little different from what i usually write, i hope you enjoyed it
> 
> leave me a comment if you want, or you can come find me on [tumblr](https://sentichefuoripiove.tumblr.com) and we can have a chat!
> 
> thanks for reading xx


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